Figments
by It'sTimeToDance
Summary: She woke up strapped to a bed. And they tell her, they keep telling her, he doesn't exist. Edward doesn't exist.
1. Chapter 1

Figments

A Twilight Minific

_(prologue)_

_With your feet in the air and your head on the ground  
Try this trick and spin it, yeah  
Your head will collapse  
If there's nothing in it  
And you'll ask yourself_

_Where is my mind?_

_  
_----The Pixies

I've only been in a hospital a handful of times in my life. But you don't have to live in one to recognise the smell.

Here's what happens:

Antiseptic scents wafting through the air, austere walls with only the necessary medical equipment adorning the walls. The beds, like a sheet wrapped in frozen meat, growing lumpier as you drift into consciousness. The invasive thought that you weren't wearing a glorified sheet of paper when you were last awake. The feeling that everything after this moment will only go downhill. The irrevocable _Where am I? _thoughts that buzz throughout your brain.

And the doctor standing at the edge of the bed.

"Isabella," he said. "Glad to see your awake."

I try to sit up. Its an unpleasantly vulnerable feeling, lying on your back in front of a complete stranger. But I can't. Something is holding me back. Something is pinning me to the bed, cutting into my skin like a thousands dull knives. Something is pressing against my chest, my legs, my feet. I can't move.

"Where am I?" I ask. The only thing I remember, past this foggy veil weighing down my mind, is standing in La Push. Leaning over the cliff, thinking of Jacob, off with his friends. I remember air rushing through my hair, my skin, so hard and so fast I'm afraid my face will peel off. Then I remember falling into the icy, frigid waters.

And now this.

The doctor smiles sadly, as though I'm a tragic case worthy of several television movies and award-winning biopics. "The same place you've been in for...oh, I'd say it's been three years now."

_What?_

"What?" I ask, realizing how hoarse my voice is. "What are you talking about? Where am I? Who are you?"

I start lightly struggling against my restraints, wondering if I've been forcefully volunteered for a sick scientific experiment. I look at the doctor, with his long nose and bushy eyebrows, his receding hairline. His skin looks to large for his face, sliding down his chin like hot cheese on a pizza. He has kind eyes, the sort that always look a bit sad.

"_I _am Doctor Raymond Christoph," he said quietly, almost like he had said it before. "_You_ are in West Seattle Psychiatric Hospital." He watched me attempt to tug my arms from the belt-like restraints. "You are restrained to keep you from hurting yourself or my staff."

"Psychiatric hospital?" I breathed. "What...no, that's impossible."

Three years? I was _just _at La Push.

He sighed, leaning his wrinkled hand at the foot of my bed. "I'm afraid you have been suffering from extreme hallucinations for years, now. You awoke several days ago thrashing in your room, screaming something about an...Edward." He smiled woefully at me. "Took quite a hit to the head as well, while we were sedating you. That might be the reason for your disorientation."

I realized a lingering ache in my temple spread to the center of my forehead, my heart beating wildly in my chest. I looked around. Pale, neutral colors surrounded me, nurses and patients shuffling around like desolate ghost. Lumps of mumbling, tangled limbs lay comatose in the beds around me, some strapped down like me, others sitting up and staring, glassy eyed, at the floor. Do I look like that?

_No. _I am _not _insane, I don't belong here. This is a mistake. A terrible, terrible mistake.

"Excuse me," I said evenly, "but I think this is some sort of mistake."

He smiled again. "I'm afraid not, Isabella. You were admitted here by your legal guardian when you were fourteen. I have your father's signature, if you care to see." He waved his clipboard at me.

_Charlie _put me here? _Charlie, _who was afraid to take away TV privileges because he thought it would cause some kind of daughter to father domestic war? _Charlie, _who avoided hospitals like the plague? _Charlie?_

And one horrifying thought struck me.

"Where's Edward?" I gasped, suddenly breathless with horror. "Is he here?"

Suddenly, the doctor looked withered, his smile falling down his face and his eyes fixing on mine. Serious.

"Bella," he said, once again like he had had this conversation before. "Edward doesn't exist."

_TBC_


	2. Chapter 2

**Figments**

_**(Part 1)**_

_How can I find hope in dying, with promises unseen?  
How can I learn your way is better  
In everything I'm taught to be?  
Isn't that crazy?  
_----MERCYME

The nursing staff are very gratuitous.

Meaning, I think they're living vicariously through their patients fantasies. Or, a selected few simply bask in the patients' insanity, wishing they themselves could live with little responsibility other then shifting throughout the day without being restrained and sedated. In hindsight, I think that's really a common fantasy that plenty of people indulge in. Then again, plenty of people don't a_ctually _get restrained and sedated.

I've been allowed to walk around the hospital. I've been directed to my room--when I'm not under physical restraint--on the other end of the building. Pictures adorn the walls--me with Charlie, me with Renee, me with a strange dog I don't remember having. Me with long hair, me with short and---I spot one of me with dark, musty black hair and a scowl on my pale face. I look about fourteen.

All of this solid evidence that the doctor was right---maybe I am crazy.

Maybe.

It would be somewhat of a comfort--to know I had never met Edward, never even knew Edward, that he and all he brought with him was just inside my head. That I can rest easy with my renewed sense of whats mythical and whats real, that I forget he's off somewhere, living without me, forgetting me.

Days have passed before the shock wears off. And then I cry.

It took all I had to convince the nurses I wasn't having another breakdown, and their needles weren't necessary.

How could it all have been a delusion? A figment of my imagination? How is that _possible? _I remember everything so clearly---every encounter, every confrontation, every person. All so fleshed out, more then a book or a movie could fabricate. I still feel the lingering warmth of Jacob's hands on my shoulder, I still remember Edward's cold fingers tracing circles in my arm---

_That's not made up._

"Excuse me?" a girl says, leaning down so she I can see her. "Your not going to throw a fit again, are you? I only have so many picture frames..."

I realize I've drifted into my room again---staring at the picture of me with black hair. I fixate my gaze on the girl.

She's about my age---assuming I even _know _my age---with long, straw-like hair and freckles dotting her pale skin. Her mouth is heart shaped, in the way I thought only cartoons could have. Her eyes were the deepest, murkiest shade of green I had ever seen, like a swamp or forest underbrush.

"Sorry?" I say, blinking.

"My picture frame," she elaborates. "Your broke it last week when you had your little meltdown. I'm just glad you didn't scratch the picture--I only have one, you know." She sits down on her side, on her bed. I notice she has on a pair of non brand jeans and a blank white t-shirt. "Who's _Edward, _anyway?"

"What?" I blink again.

"Edward," she says. "You were screaming about an Edward, something about him." She pops something like a mint into her mouth. "Who is he? Boyfriend?"

"I..." I wonder who this girl is, why she's in my room. "Who are you?"

It's her turn to blink, looking at me with utter disbelief. "Who _am _I?" she scoffs. "I've only been your roommate for---what? Two years? Fuck, Bella, how much a' that shit they give you?"

Apparently a lot.

She leans back on her bed and reached for a a shelf above her bed, taking from it a small, pseudo--leather bound notebook, well worn and tattered. She has a lollipop in her mouth, sucking it erratically like she keeps forgetting it's there. "Here," she says, tossing me the notebook. "They wanted to confiscate it."

I catch it awkwardly, barely keeping it in my grip. I look down on it in bewilderment.

Across the front, in red lettering, is _**Isabella.**_

"I could'a gotten in some serious trouble for keeping that," the girl says, and I notice her thick Brooklyn accent. "You owe me."

I open my mouth, then close it. Is this worth that much trouble? I want to ask her. Instead, I say, "Th...anks."

She quirks an eyebrow at me. "Wow, your really out of it today. I bet they used the good stuff." She paused and looks at the wall. "You _were_ gettin' pretty rowdy on 'em. Kicked a nurse right in the face." She chuckles.

"Who...are you?" I say again, looking up at her.

She was fumbling with something on the shelf, ignoring me. She pulls something from between two books and waves it in my face. "Look what I found in the nurses' station."

She tosses it at me blindly, smacking me in the face with it. I blink in disorientation, glancing at the title. _Playboy._

"Why would you take this?" I ask.

She continues to ignore me. "I think it's that male nurse's, whatsisname? Nathan or something." She falls sloppily off the bed and plumped down on the carpet, reaching out her hand for the magazine. I hand it to her.

She flips it open and stares at the page.

"Why would you take that?" I ask again.

She looks at me like I just asked why the sky is blue. "_Because _they don't let us make subscriptions here, dumbass."

I blink again and lie down on the bed. I hear the girl stifle a laugh. "I see London, I see France..."

I realize I'm still in my hospital gown. Quickly, I sit up and cross my legs.

"You know," the girl says, glancing at a photograph taped to the wall. "I really liked that picture frame."

I look at the picture; it's a girl, with earrings spotted all over her face. Her hair was a sheen black, hanging in shags over her eyes. She's smiling with yellowed teeth, a cigarette hanging from her mouth.

"Sorry," I say.

"Your clothes are under the bed, in case you forgot," the girl says lightly, flipping through the playboy with little interest.

"Oh."

I get to my knees and riffle through the bottom of the bed, finding a modest pile of t-shirts and sweatpants. No shoes.

I start to think of Edward, something I hadn't allowed for some time. I remember what he said.

_....it'll be like I never existed...._

No. That's impossible. There's not way.

xXxXx

We have therapy. Mandatory.

I'm plucked from my room at eight in the morning by a plump orderly, telling me I've already missed three sessions and "there ain't no more ex'ses, yeh drama queen."

I found no point in argument, so I allowed myself to be dragged down the many woven halls. I wondered if they made it this complicated on purpose to keep people from making a run for it?

The therapist was a small, unassuming man with a receding hairline and a large, red nose. His smile was like a jagged scar across his jaw, completely colorless but for the white of his teeth as he waved a hand at the chair in front of me. I realize the nurse had left, and I was standing stiffly at the door.

"Please, Bella," the man said, "sit."

I looked around. There were only degrees and newspaper clippings on the wall. No pictures, no personnel effects.

I sat down.

"So," he said, preparing his clipboard on his knee and propping a pen over a piece of paper, "how are you since the incident?"

They love the word 'incident' here. Everything, from spilling a glass of milk to setting a section of building on fire was an 'incident'. I don't remember any_ incident_, I want to tell him. I don't know what incident your referring too. All I know is that they're telling me nothing is real, and I can't believe that.

After a moment, the therapist says, "Doctor Christoph informs me you don't remember much,"

I pause. "No."

He says, "Can you tell me what you _do_ remember?"

I look down at the jeans and t-shirt I don't remember owning, digging my nails into my palm. What do I remember? Nothing that will get me out of here. Nothing that would convince these people I'm not a nutcase.

But, damnit, I _know_ it was real.

What's the point in telling the truth? It only gets you a dinner of pills.

"Everything," I say simply. I twist my fingers in my lap, glancing around for a clock. There is none.

He scribbles something down. "I thought you didn't remember anything."

There is a moment, such a brief, debilitating moment, when I consider the idea that I might--_might_--be insane, that I might belong here, surrounded by neutral colors and somber faces and unassuming nurses. Just a moment, and it quickly passes like the air leaving my lungs. I can feel it's impact, like a weight leaving my chest, because I _know_ I'm not crazy. I_ know_.

"I don't," I say. "I don't remember anything here."

I assume it's a safe answer, because he nods, smiles, scribbles and sends me on my way.

The girl who's name I don't know is waiting outside, with a nurse tight by her side and a grin overwhelming her tiny face. Her hair is ruffled, and the nurse has her in a vice-like grip. She looks at me and offers a mischievous smile before the nurse drags her past me and into the therapist's office. The door shuts with a click.

I stand, at a loss for words.

xXxXx

When I get back to my room, I notice that the things on my desk have been shoved to the floor, scattered at the base of my bed in disarray. The journal with my name on it is open, ripped at places and scuffed at the cover. I bent down.

The first thing I see, in chick scratched handwriting, is the name _Edward_.

I run my finger over the page. Would this have answers? Or would it just confirm my own insanity?

The first twenty or so pages have been ripped out, so I start somewhere in the middle. The paragraph starts mid sentence:

---_me again. It's getting a bit...discerning. I keep expecting Edward to walk through the door and get me out of here. I hate this place...it feels like I've been here for years...and they keep telling me he's not real...but he is. I know he is. I keep waking up here, every morning...but then, when I think I'm asleep...I'm back at Charlie's...and he's there, watching me, waiting for me...I KNOW HE'S REAL--_

The next half the page was slashed through to the back cover.

Oh, no.

xXxXx

"Sorry I messed with your shit," the girl says when she walks in an hour later. "My girl through a fit, started telling me she wasn't going to do nothing with a 'crazy girl'--I mean, it's only 'cuz of _her _I'm even in here." She ran her tongue over her teeth, as though scoping for a chunk of leftover food. "Anyway, hope you didn't like that box thing."

I didn't want to know who 'her girl' was, or even what it meant. I only looked down and looked at the box and looked and looked and stared.

It was pink, with sparkling purple stickers worn so thin on the sides it was almost as though they were part of the thick plastic. It was open, cracked along the top enough to send each end in different directions. There was nothing in it. Nothing.

This girl talked a lot, doesn't shut up doesn't shut up but never says her name. I ask her, I ask her and she never answers, just tells me how much shit they gave me and talks and talks some more.

But there is something there. A little silver chain. With a small, delicate clasp. The end is broken off, whatever charm that had been there long gone. But I still knew it, I still knew.

I closed my fingers around the delicate charm, around it and remembered how cold his skin had been as it brushed my neck. I remember, I remember. I don't think, I _remember_.

My knees start to ache; the crap from my desk is small, is sharp, and I'm leaning farther into it. I can feel the girl's eyes on me. Looking, staring.

xXxXx

"Time for pills!"

"Oh, no thank you."

"No up to you, sweetie."

"But I don't need them."

"Sure you don't, hun."

"I don't."

"Is that what Edward told you?"

xXxXx

Gaps in time are like this:

You can jump off a mountain, you can crash a motor cycle on a cliff side, you can discover fairy tales and let them swallow you whole, you can live and die and fall in love and fall out of love, but if your not there to see it, it might as well've never happened.

And then you end up here:

White walls, white beds, white eyes white pills white clothes white teeth white white white. Nothing else, nothing different. White, like the skin of someone not really alive. White like, like, like...

"I want to sleep," I told the girl who sleeps next to me. "I want to sleep."

She groaned, like it was such a bother, like I had just knocked down a thirty foot house of cards. "Get a nurse, then."

"I don't want to get a nurse," I said. "I want to sleep. I want to see him."

She looked up sharply, her eyes pointed even through the pale darkness. "How about I _make_you sleep, fucken psycho."

Tears stung my eyes and I did not sleep.

xXxXx

I know I'm not crazy.

Please, dear God, I'm not crazy.

xXxXx

Charlie is here, he's here to see me. I don't know what to do. He might be different, everything else is different. I don't know who I am, who he is. He could be someone else, someone else.

By now the drugs have dulled, have dulled everything around them, like a pencil rubbing at pen scratches. Makes everything lighter, but it's always still there.

Anyway, Charlie's here to see me.

xXxXx

He has a moustache still, he's still peppered with gray, he still looks uncomfortable, he still looks like Charlie.

I stare at him.

"How are you?" he asks me.

My mouth is dry, but I don't know it until I open it. "Fine."

"Do you think your feeling better?"

I get the feeling this has been asked a lot, been asked more then once; he wants me out, but he wants me quite. Normal.

"Edward's real, isn't he?" My head hurts, and I start to crave the daily white pill. Everything is becoming sharper, sharper.

He makes a face, like he's trying to hold it together, like he wants to cry. I bows his head, shakes it, back and forth back and forth. "Bella," he says.

They want me to believe this is my life; that's what they want.

I bow my own head and lean it against the cafeteria table, closing my eyes and listening to the sound of my father breathing. That's all, that's all.

**Author's Note: **A few things--I have a twitter opinionatedme12 and a book review blogspot account (readingwatchingliving . blogspot . com). Also, I'm working on some Twilight AU's, even though I promised myself I'd stay away. So, enjoy what I post, or not, whatever works.

Review!


	3. Chapter 3

Figments

(final chapter)

_"My mind has wandered, from the straight and narrow.  
My mind has wandered from the flock you see.  
My mind has wandered, the man just said so."_

--Oingo Boingo

This is nothing. This is nothing. This is nothing.

Because if everything, everything, was wrong, then everything is nothing. Nothing.

xXxXx

_I'M NOT CRAZY_

I'm not.

xXxXx

The girl's name is Sarah.

I saw it on a letter she wrote. It was on pink, scented paper, folded and unfolded so many times the creases were white. The handwriting was scratched, blue pen smeared all around. I couldn't read it, couldn't understand, could only read the header: _Dear Sarah...._

The therapist, a different one this time, asked me; how do you feel?

I feel empty, I told her. I don't feel anything. I'm blank.

She told me: why is that?

I told her because. That's it. Because.

Because it's a lie, they said.

Because this is all fake, they said.

Don't believe us?

Here, have a pill.

xXxXx

I told the girl, "Hi, Sarah."

She looked at me sharply. "What?"

I looked at her, afraid of what she would do. She didn't strike me as someone who thought before she acted. "Hi."

Her eyes were hard, like steel and bricks and diamonds and cement, looking to crush me, kill me. When she spoke, it was with an icy tone. "That's not my name."

And she walked out.

I'm not sure why this matters. I just don't know.

xXxXx

I shuffled down the halls, feeling the alien glare of the lights on my back. I didn't take the pills when they handed them to me, I didn't look at them. I nodded at the nurses, feigned popping something in my mouth, and walked off. They stopped checking me, making sure I swallowed them, because I had stopped arguing about it. I had stopped fighting, questioning.

The world had taken a surreal tone, and my throat felt constricted most of the time. Everything was gradually becoming sharper, now that I was out of the bubble. It didn't feel better.

He left, didn't he? He said it would be like he never existed. Is this what he meant? He meant it would _really_ be like he never existed? Did he do this? _Can_ he do this?

But why would he?

_Why would he leave me here?_

xXxXx

I met a boy who's name was Mike.

For a moment, my heart leaped, jumped, twisted and turned, because he looked so familiar. He looked like a Mike. He glanced at me with a happiness, a whimsical affection that could only come from one set of eyes, and I wanted to kiss him. Really, I did.

"Hey," he said as I passed him. "I'm Mike."

I know, I said. I know your Mike.

His eyebrow quirked, but his grin was solid. He was wearing the same beige clothes everyone did, but his tanned skin made up for it. "Oh?"

"How are you here?" I asked him, moving closer, desperate, hungry. If he could tell me, if he knew. Maybe this is a mistake, really, really a mistake.

Now he looks nervous, frightened. He's new to this place, new to these white walls. He doesn't know not to talk to the crazy people yet.

But, of course he's new. He's Mike. Mike Mike Mike.

"What?" he says. "What?" _What what what?_

My breath catches, desperation clawing at my chest, ripping it, tearing it.

"Mike," I say. "Your Mike. Your Mike Newton. Right? _Right_?"

He nods, slowly, and I can hear the sound of his hospital issue booties sliding against the floors, back back back, away from the crazy girl. I can almost hear him thinking, _why did I talk to her? What was I thinking? Talking to the crazy people?_

He started to back away, faster, farther, faster, farther.

"You know Edward. Cullen, you know the Cullens. Tell them you know, _tell them_."

"Hey, man," he said, his voice cracking like a twelve year olds, "I don't know anything. Hey, get _off_!"

He started to shake his arm, but I held on tighter. I wouldn't let him go. He was Mike Newton, puppy dog Mike. Dated Jessica, loved me, hated Edward. He knew, he has to tell them he's real. He has to.

"Tell them!" I screeched, like a ghastly women in a horror movie. "You know, right? Tell them. _Tell them!"_

A nurse came by, and another and another. Cold hands around me, pulling me, little Mike Newton who was supposed to love me watching in awe, in horror, as I was dragged away away away.

xXxXx

His face is like a doll's--perfect, fake, painted carefully to create the illusion, that illusion. So many will try to recreate it, so many, but there is only one. And this is not it.

But he's real, he's out there. No amount of drugs can change that.

xXxXx

"I think we should up her medication."

"She really hasn't been taking very well to it..."

"She doesn't take it for one hour, Doctor, and she nearly chokes another patient--"

"Shh, she's waking up."

xXxXx

My eyes were crusty when I opened them, and I had the taste of chemical in the back of my throat. My neck is stiff, and my arms are sore.

"Nice to have you back, Isabella," Dr. Christoph says. I can tell by his tone that, no, it is note nice to have me back.

I'm sluggish, my vision is blurry. I don't feel completely there. "...Bella," I groan through a figurative sock in my mouth. "Bel...la."

I can see a forced smile through the fog. "Of course. Bella."

I look around. I'm lying in the same bed--or one just like it--as the first time, strapped and hooked and wired like a test subject. But maybe this is a test?

Yeah, a test.

"Did I pass?" I slur, letting my head gradually sink farther into the pillow.

I can feel his discomfort like I can feel air--obvious, but subtle, around so long you forget it's there. Or never realized...it's always been there. Everyone seems uncomfortable.

"Did you pass what?" he asks, slowly, like he would to an essentially slow child.

My throat hurts as I drift back down, "...the test..."

And I'm thinking about Edward why am I thinking about Edward? He isn't real.

Right?

xXxXx

They let me walk again three days later, chaperoned by a hefty looking nurse with a red face and orange hair. They let me shuffle from the bathroom to the cafeteria to my room to the bathroom to my room to the bathroom back and forth back and forth until I tell them my feet hurt and they bring my back to the bed.

"Why do I have to sleep here?" I ask the nurse as she pricks the tube back in my arm.

"Dr. Christoph doesn't want you hurting yourself," she says dryly, like a rehearsed speech. Her chubby fingers linger over each nob and tube.

Sitting with my feet dangling off the bed, watching her. And that's all.

xXxXx

Back in my room, I sit with my legs pulled up, my chin resting on my knees. Thinking.

The door is open, revealing the pristine, surreal sitting room. Patients stared blankly at the television, matted with sedative.

An ache is in my chest, and I lower my head so no one can catch the grimace on my face. Just like always, except before, I could shut the door and suffer in silence. Now, there are rambling, drooling people shuffling all around me, nurses just waiting to pump me full of drugs. There are people waiting for me to lose it. Again.

I won't give them that satisfaction.

xXxXx

"Ms. Swan," the therapist says, "how are you feeling?"

"_Fine_," I snap. "You've asked me that every time I've been in here, and every time I say _fine_. I'm _fine_."

Of course, he writes that down.

"Are you still dreaming about Edward?" he asks.

I didn't dream him. He's real real real.

"I don't dream anymore," I tell him. "I can't even think anymore, with all the crap you have me on." I don't like cursing, but I think it's rather ridiculous to try and save face _here_.

He looks down at me through his looooong nose, an almost reproachful gleam in his eye. I cross my arms and wait.

"Do you still believe Edward exists?" he says slowly.

I give him an icy stare. "You can't make him up," I said. "No one can. He's beyond imagination."

xXxXx

After a few more token inquiries, he sends me out.

"You know, Ms. Swan," he calls after me. "Your in here because of yourself."

I shut the door.

Walking, shuffling, sliding towards my room, across the main floor and down the hall and through the TV room. Hardly more then twenty feet. But it stretches in front of me.

_Bella_

I spin on my heels, startling a mousy girl beside me.

"What?" I whisper.

_...you forgot about me..._

Like a ghost, a beautiful voice moans at me. Tickling my ear, breathing cool air onto my skin.

"No," I say. "I would never..."

_you forgot about me_

"You left," I say, louder, drawing attention from several other patients passing. "You said to..."

_you let them do it_

"No..."

_you let them_

"No!" I shout, putting a hand towards the top of my head and fingering strands of my hair. "You left! You told me to!"

_your fault, Bella_

"Edward," I say. His voice is back, like in La Push and Port Angeles. He's back, he's real, he's _here_.

_stupid, crazy lamb_

"You told me to!" I cry, pressing my palms against my ears as his laugh, his icy icy laugh, ring tauntingly around me. "You said to forget. _You told me_!"

I see him, standing so close so close, his cold skin on my face, my neck, sending chills down my back. His eyes are black, a terrible black. "You'll never see me again," he says. "You'll never forget."

I can see the white figures of the nurses approaching, with their big fat stupid needles.

"He's here!" I call to them, swinging my fist towards Edward, but it passes right through. "Look at him! _He's right here_!"

"Ms. Swan," Dr. Christoph says, growing bigger and bigger, his face changing, becoming sharper and paler like a painting. He thins, he grows, he smiles at me with blood stained teeth, and he's Edward.

They're all Edward.

The girl who's not Sarah smiles wider and wider like the Chesire cat, bigger and bigger, towering over me.

"He's real!" I'm shouting, to every one of them. All the Edwards. "He's real! He's real!"

One of the Edwards approach, needle in hand glaring smiling laughing. "Time for your medicine."

crazy crazy

_stupid, crazy lamb_

"No!" I shriek. "Edward! _Edward_!"

Snow covers my windows and a chill has clung to the air, but my skin is damp with sweat. The covers have fallen to the floor, leaving me with nothing but shorts and a t-shirt. The alarm clock flashes: 2:13.

I sit up slowly and glance towards the window, seeing nothing but a layer of ice. The outline of the moon shines through, illuminating the small desk calender over my computer.

_December 25th_

My breath comes in short gasps as I pull my knees towards my chin, blinking away the sleep.

I remember like a slap in the face why I love this cold.

"Merry Christmas," I mutter, digging my head in my arms and letting the tears soak through the sweat.

_end_

**Important!Author's Note (read whole thing)**: Alright, lemme explain. This was not meant to be good. Just some gratuitous crazy-person pimping on my part. If it is good, that's great, but I really didn't go out and try to make it fantastic. I had this idea in my head for quite some time, so I wrote it down as quickly as possible before I lost it. I do not intend on re-reading, revising, nor re-writing it. It just _is_, purely for my own amusement. I'm posting it cause I want to see how whacked (on a scale of 1 to 10) my day dreams are. If you hate it, feel free to tell me. I won't be insulted (alright, depends how mean they are). I'm not saying this is bad, because I don't think it is, but I don't think it's fantastic, either. If anyone wants to rent out the idea, feel free (though some links would be nice--I love to see the fruits of my labor =])

ALSO: This is a bit of a reference to The Nightmare Before Christmas. Cuz, you know, she had a nightmare...the night before Christmas...geddit?

Everyone be sure to check out the super-uhmazingly-talented Swing Girl At Heart (under favorite authors on my pro). She's horrendously underrated :)

Anywho, thanks for reading!


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